Austrostipa from the Latin 'auster' meaning south and the genus Stipa, referring to the genus being allied to Stipa but restricted to Australia. Nitida from the Latin 'niteo' meaning shining, referring to its spikelets and panicle appearing shining en masse in the sun, or the lemma having a smooth, shiny surface.

Distribution:

Found in most parts of South Australia growing on sandy loam to clay loam in shrubland, mallee and woodland to desert and Nullarbor. Also found in all mainland states.

Status:

Native. Common in South Australia. Common in the other states.

Plant description:

Densely tufted perennial grass to 80 cm high, with erect unbranched culms and glabrous nodes, usually hidden by the sheaths. Leaves glabrous to shortly pubescent, with blade slightly to strongly inrolled, to 30 cm long and 2 mm wide, rather stiff; sheath rather broad and loose, often with a pale marginal stripe to 9 mm wide. Inflorescence a contracted, dense panicle to 40 cm long, the base of the panicle usually concealed by uppermost leaf-sheath; green shining glumes to 13 mm long, soon fading to straw-coloured. Flowering between July and December.

Key to this species: awn falcate (curved bristle at right angle to the column); lemma narrow and needle-like; nodes mostly concealed; leaves basal and cauline (up the stem); often inrolled to appear fine; glumes green and shinin; panicle contracted and dense

Use your hands to gently strip the seeds (lemma) off the mature fruiting spike, those that are turning golden colour. Mature seeds will come off easily compare to the immature seeds that remain on the spike. Alternatively, you can break off the whole fruit spike to allow some of the seeds to mature further.

Seed cleaning:

Place the seeds/spike in a tray and leave to dry for two weeks. No further cleaning is required if only seed collected. If seed spikes collected, use hand to strip off the mature seeds. Store the seeds with a desiccant such as dried silica beads or dry rice, in an air tight container in a cool and dry place.

Seed viability:

Viability of grass seeds could be very viable, depending on time of seed collections and seasonal conditions. From one collection, the seed viability was low, at 50%.

Seeds stored:

Location

No. of seeds(weight grams)

Numberof plants

Datecollected

Collection numberCollection location

Datestored

% Viability

Storagetemperature

BGA

5700 (6.98 g)

50+

16-Jun-2010

KHB441Flinders Ranges

1-Jan-2012

50%

Location: BGA — the seeds are stored at the Adelaide Botanic Gardens, MSB — the seeds are stored at the Millennium Seed Bank, Kew, England.Number of plants: This is the number of plants from which the seeds were collected.Collection location: The Herbarium of South Australia's region name.% Viability: Percentage of filled healthy seeds determined by a cut test or x-ray.